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Wednesday, October 12, 2011

If there was a eurozone quote of the week award...

...Slovakian MPs would be up to their eyes in them. The Slovakian EFSF vote has provided us with plenty of action over the past few days, with Richard Sulik's SaS party certainly putting the cat amongst the eurozone pigeons.

One of the consistent themes of the SaS' opposition to increasing their country's exposure to the eurozone crisis through extra guarantees to the EFSF is that Slovakia enacted harsh reforms in order to join the EU and the Single Currency, while Greece has been 'rewarded' for its fiscal mismanagement and accounting tricks with external bailouts (although the accompanying austerity won't make it feel that way for ordinary Greeks).

These are serious issues, the political implications of which are impossible to predict right now. But whatever your thoughts on the SaS' decision to oppose the EFSF expansion, you have to admit its MPs have come up with some cracking soundbites. Take Martin Poliacik, a 31-year-old SaS MP, who said he hoped the rejection of the bill would kick start an "immediate" debate about the future of the EU:

"It's like going to a nightclub and the doorman says 'you're not coming in wearing those shoes' or 'without a suit on', and when you eventually get into the club you see that other people are wearing jeans and trainers."

Or Sulik himself:

“I'd rather be a pariah in Brussels than have to feel ashamed before my children, who would be deeper in debt should I back raising the volume of funding in the EFSF bail-out mechanism.”

And responding to one of his pro-EFSF expansion coalition colleagues:

"I will believe in solidarity when you put up your flat as collateral for the EFSF."

With the EFSF set to return to the Slovakian parliament for round 2 this week, expect the list to grow.